Dystopian future
ALTHOUGH often thought of as cautionary tales, post-apocalyptic narratives are rarely interested in what brought about the end of the world.
Books
Hot heads and a cool heart
BRITISH journalist, broadcaster and novelist Tony Parsons has written the first of what looks like being a series of crime thrillers.
Setbacks emboldened Tricky Dicky
PATRICK Buchanan describes Richard Nixon’s recovery from two defeats in the early 1960s as ‘‘the greatest comeback in political history’’.
Family heavy, politics lite
ACCORDING to author Ruth Rae, this biography of Tony Windsor was written “because there was a gap in (our) political history”.
From little things …
DEEPER Water is compelling and at times stunningly rich but it doesn’t hold the reader hostage in the same way as Jessie Cole’s first book.
The spirit of wabi-sabi
HARUKI Murakami’s latest outing shows it is a mistake to underestimate the Japanese novelist’s simpler works.
Poetry of life’s process
AFTER an uncertain, somewhat flat start, Claire Gaskin’s collection Paperweight takes off with If I Hadn’t, something of a breakthrough poem.
A timely word from the wise
THE Haitch Factor provides excellent promotion for the Macquarie Dictionary, of which Susan Butler has been the editor for some 30 years.
Dissident wisdom
THE birth of her daughter changed the life of Australian writer Antonella Gambotto-Burke, yet Mama is anything but a book about a baby.
Rivers run deep for lady of letters
THE rehabilitation of Jane Franklin from wifely battleaxe to beautiful mind took a decisive step forward yesterday.
Modern look at the Irish past
IN her lively and well-written book on various aspects of the convict system, Babette Smith’s analysis of the Irish is open to challenge.
Empire states
An insightful new book considers 10 cities that helped make Britain great.
From the Booker, to the future
ONE of the oddities of the Man Booker Prize is that books can be longlisted and even shortlisted before they are published.
Remembering Cyclone Tracy
THE real value of Sophie Cunningham’s book about Cyclone Tracy is the author’s detailing of the survivors’ accounts.
Ideas sink in a sea of bile
MARK Latham has provided a definitive “yes” to the question of whether politicians can actually write.
A spooky sojourn without WiFi
IN this new novella in a literary horror series from Hammer, DBC Pierre turns his critical eye on our obsession with digital technology.
Author of his own demise
WHEN we meet Michael Ardenne, the antihero of Ian Shadwell’s Slush Pile, it has been more than a decade since he won the Man Booker Prize.
A life of crime
HE’S sold six million books but even his neighbours haven’t heard of him. Meet Michael Robotham.
Antidotes to antiheroes
A NEW television series based on Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 book The Three Musketeers proves we still need good guys.
Running away to find oneself
A TRAVEL memoir based on the author’s experience of hitchhiking around Australia in the late 2000s, Hitchy Feet introduces us to John Card.
Cobs and dobbers
A TURN in the cultural tide is robbing some Australian English words of their currency.
Wrath, greed, sloth … and zaniness
MY nine-year-old co-reviewer, Syd recently found time in his busy schedule to help me sort through the picture books we’d read so far this year.
Wonderful, weird, but awfully real
IF it’s one mark of a good book that it grabs you from the very first, then Paddy O’Reilly’s slightly creepy new novel is the business.
Talking, but who’s listening?
HERE Come the Dogs is an ambitious exploration of Omar Musa’s recurring concerns about identity, class and masculinity.
We’re doing it for you: Amazon
AMAZON is appealing to book lovers’ budgets, claiming its battle with publisher Hachette is about making sure they pay less for digital titles.
Portrait of the poet
OLD controversies are being revisited in the year of Dylan Thomas’s birth centenary.
The unbearable slightness of being
IN his new novel, Demons, Wayne Macauley has ingeniously refurbished an old tale to capture the perplexing vacuity of a generation.
Imagination that made Marion
SCOTT Eyman’s excellent John Wayne: The Life and Legend will deepen the writer’s reputation as an authority on American film.
Narcissism, on reflection
FOR Melbourne writer Anne Manne, author of The Life of I, the rise of narcissism is an issue of cultural significance.
Fingers crossed for Flanagan
HUGE congratulations to Richard Flanagan for making the Man Booker Prize longlist for his superb novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/page/200